Vancouverite Linda Bailey is an accomplished and lighthearted writer for children, best known for her Stevie Diamond detective series. She recently won the Silver Birch Award for Adventures in the Middle Ages, a title in her Good Times Travel Agency series.

Lizzy, the believable and likeable star of this picture book, adores skating. Waiting for skating lessons, she practises twirls around the living room, and tries the new skates on every night, “turning them this way and that to make the blades twinkle in the light.” Undeterred by her collapsing ankles and choppy strides, she wants desperately and passionately to star in the school winter carnival production. But not only is she not chosen to play Snow White or even one of the dwarfs, she’s relegated to the stiff role of a cardboard pine tree in the forest.The illustrations of Lizzy skating in the ungainly tree costume are both funny and poignant, especially at the finish, when she breaks stride and leads the other trees bunny-hopping down the ice, to great laughter from the audience.

This is a delightful book, with genuine ups and downs, vivid childhood passions, and a cheeky and amusing solution. The chapter book-level writing will interest readers up to age 9. The illustrations, by Alan and Lea Daniel, are complex, lively, funny, and at the same level as the text. Working together, these two illustrators are at their best when they combine their great technical skill with silliness. A few of the faces are too realistic, with a stiffness that smacks of photographic references. But the bodies of the skaters slide, sprawl, dip, and stretch wonderfully on each page, communicating the emotions of the children and the slipperiness of the ice.